Learning to heal as any class can be an intimidating venture, but learning to heal as a Restoration Druid seems even more daunting for many simply due to the wide range of styles and preferences available. While this guide will not be meant as an examination of the only effective way to heal, it is meant to introduce the basic concepts and some of the differences in approaching healing that Druid’s must face when determining everything from talents to gear to effectively using the vast arsenal of abilities at their disposal. This guide will not focus on glyph choices, however, or in adapting talent specs specifically toward a preferred style of healing. As the title states, this is a primer for Druid healers to understand the basics experienced healers take for granted.

Section One: Key Abilities

Healing Touch – Obtained at Level 1
Costs 33% of base mana, has a 40 yd range and a 3 sec cast.
(Rank 15) Heals a friendly target for 3750 to 4428.

Rejuvenation – Obtained at Level 4
Costs 18% of base mana, has a 40 yd range and is instant cast.
(Rank 15) Heals the target for 1690 over 15 sec.

Regrowth – Obtained at Level 12
Costs 29% of base mana, has a 40 yd range and a 2 sec cast.
(Rank 12) Heals a friendly target for 2234 to 2494 and another 2345 over 21 sec.

Omen of Clairty – Talent, Obtainable at Level 20
Each of the Druid’s damage, healing spells and auto attacks has a chance of causing the caster to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the Mana, Rage or Energy cost of your next damage, healing spell or offensive ability by 100%.

Tranquility – Obtained at Level 30
Costs 70% of base mana and is channeled with a 10 min cooldown.
(Rank 7) Heals all nearby group members for 3035 every 2 seconds for 8 sec. Druid must channel to maintain the spell.

Nature’s Swiftness – Talent, Obtainable at Level 30
No mana cost talent that provides an instant buff with a 3 min cooldown.
When activated, your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 sec. becomes an instant cast spell.

Swiftmend – Talent, Obtainable at Level 40
Costs 16% of base mana, has a 40 yd range and is instant cast with a 15 sec cooldown.
Consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on a friendly target to instantly heal them an amount equal to 12 sec. of Rejuvenation or 18 sec. of Regrowth.

Innervate – Obtained at Level 40
No mana cost, has a 30 yd range and is instant cast with a 3 min cooldown.
Causes the target to regenerate mana equal to 225% of the casting Druid’s base mana pool over 10 sec.

Wild Growth – Talent, Obtainable at Level 60
Costs 23% of base mana, has a 40 yd range and is instant cast with a 6 sec cooldown.
(Rank 4) Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 1442 over 7 sec. The amount healed is applied quickly at first, and slows down as the Wild Growth reaches its full duration.

Nourish – Obtained at Level 80
Costs 18% of base mana, has a 40 yd range and a 1.5 sec cast.
(Rank 1) Heals a friendly target for 1883 to 2187. Heals for an additional 20% if you have a Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom, or Wild Growth effect active on the target.

Section Two: Talents

While many talents are debatable, and finding what works best for one person as opposed to another is a matter of trial and error, this is the baseline talent specialization that will be used for this guide: WoW Armory Link

Delving into talent choices is an undertaking in and of itself. Until developing a preferred style and approach to healing it is highly advisable to maximize the amount of raw healing power for both direct and HoT abilities. In the talent spec linked and shown above the talents that boost Healing Touch, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Wild Growth, and Nourish directly are all taken, as are Omen of Clarity, Nature’s Swiftness, and Swiftmend (and Tree of Life and Improved Tree of Life, but those should automatically be taken by any Restoration Druid).

A future guide will delve into talent choices specifically, as well as why certain talents are chosen or ignored based upon healing preferences and styles.

Section Three: Healing Approach

The direct healing versus healing over time debate is not nearly as pronounced as it once was. With the changes made to Druids over numerous patches, a combination of the two is a necessity. While this is certainly a change for the betterment of engaging the healer in making decisions “on-the-fly” instead of simply using one or two abilities constantly, this does make the learning curve slightly steeper in developing a good approach to healing. There is not a “rotation” for healers like those that exist for damage dealing classes, or even for tanks to an extent, but there are some fundamental guidelines that are available for healers that can be followed.

Typically Regrowth is an excellent opening heal, taking care of the initial damage sustained and leaving a HoT on the recipient that will provide a bonus to healing received if/when Nourish is cast to offset further damage taken. In addition, this renders Swiftmend available for a quick, powerful direct heal.

The followup to Regrowth is tricky depending upon the amount of damage needing to be healed and how quickly said damage needs to be healed. In general, attempting to get Rejuvenation up as quickly as possible, and sustained, is an excellent practice as this also provides an additional boost to the bonus healing Nourish receives.

Lifebloom has seen a significant number of changes, and now is best left to “bloom” after being cast. Generally speaking, if able to time Lifebloom casts with Omen of Clarity procs, a Druid can not only maintain a mana-free stack of three Lifebloom’s on a target but can also use extra procs (or just each proc in general) to provide extra healing to other party or raid members and receive free mana regeneration by letting the spell bloom. While Lifebloom is certainly not as powerful as it once was, it should not be discredited simply because of the difficulty in maintaining a rolling triple-stack of the spell on a target that desperately needs heavy healing (i.e. tanks especially).

When the above approach is combined with the use of Nourish to offset the remaining damage taken, and occasionally Wild Growth to add yet another bonus to healing by Nourish, a Druid should be able to heal any tank.

Raid healing requires a slightly different approach, and typically will fall into one of two categories: the HoT raid healer and the direct raid healer. Nourish and Regrowth both have their merits for raid healing, especially when there is enough damage coming quick enough that waiting on HoTs to tick could prove dangerous, but both are also much slower in getting said healing out to a large number of people. Most raid healers will still use a combination of HoTs and direct heals, typically falling into the Rejuvenation plus Wild Growth camp or the Lifebloom camp. Neither is better or worse than the other, and very few Druids seem to limit themselves to one choice or the other and instead prefer to “feel” their way through what would be most beneficial at what time.

Healing at earlier levels, as in prior to the “end-game” at the level cap, typically revolves around a much more direct healing approach. Healing Touch is generally not used due to its long cast time, with most Druids opting to use Regrowth (especially if glyphed) as the direct heal of choice.

Druids are also strong area of effect healers, although not as strong as other healers capable of AoE healing. Utilizing the combination of Tranquility and Wild Growth provides substantial healing when necessary, although it is unable to be sustained throughout a fight due to the mana cost and cooldown on Tranquility. When talented, however, this ability no longer becomes an “emergency” heal but instead is an ability to be used as needed to recover from AoE damage.

Section Four: Finding Your Style

With time every Druid determines their preferences for doing their job efficiently and effectively. Certainly cases can be made for what is most effective based on mana consumption and efficiency, healing throughput, and healing efficiency based on least over-healing done, but in practice it is generally a far better approach to do what works best for each individual player over trying to copy the exact style or gameplay of another player. In short, every Druid should understand enough about the abilities at their disposal and be able to make quick judgements about what and when to use each ability. This will not occur overnight, and will constantly change as the way each ability works changes.

Many of the best healers out there perform as well as they do based on a simple understanding of how to respond to each encounter faced with a “feel” for what they can use to best heal their assignment(s). For instance, Patchwerk in Naxx requires more direct healing on the tanks than a reliance on HoTs alone, whereas an encounter such as General Vezax in Ulduar requires a combination of the mana-efficient use of HoTs and direct heals in order to keep enough mana to survive the fight. Neither of these encounters truly lend themselves to being able to read about and understand what abilities are best suited for healing the encounter due to the varying differences in gear, buffs, and sheer reaction time of the individual player. While there are certainly preferred methods by a number of players, every approach is possible based on raid composition and individual gear levels.

Simply remember that healing as a Druid will take practice and comfort with all of the abilities available, and a willingness to use the abilities found to be best suited to the particular encounter based on a combination of individual preference in addition to the other variables mentioned above.

Section Five: Bare Basics to Know About Stats

Spirit is, for a number of reasons, an extremely strong stat for Restoration Druids. Not only does it provide a bonus to healing in Tree of Life form, but it also impacts mana regeneration. Stacking too much spirit, however, can be detrimental if other stats would provide a more significant increase.

Intellect is sometimes overlooked, but its benefits by way of factoring into spirit-based mana regeneration, a larger mana pool, and higher crit values means that intellect and spirit should be looked at together. For the most part, what intellect is gained through looking at the other stats as primary determinations on gear choices will be more than adequate.

Spellpower is, certainly, a key stat as well. Higher spellpower numbers equals stronger heals, which in turn reduces the amount of casting necessary.

MP5 has become a desired stat in many instances due to the changes made in spirit-based mana regeneration. Just because a piece of gear has MP5 does not mean it is solely for damage-dealing specs/classes. While Druids have more difficulty running out of mana than other classes, it is still quite easily possible when a lot of healing needs to be performed. Generally MP5 is not a decisive factor in chosing one piece of gear over another, however.

Haste and crit are somewhat more difficult to decide between. While haste will certainly provide a number of benefits in being able to use the abilities with cast times more frequently within a fight, the lack of any significant benefit to all of the instant cast abilities makes it somewhat less beneficial. On the other side of the coin lies crit, which while beneficial is not truly a huge significance with the talented bonuses to crit Druids already receive. For the sake of keeping things simple, haste is often looked at as the superior of the two stats when trying to decide which piece of gear will provide the most benefit on equal upgrades.

Section Six: Personal Tips and Tricks

Mousover Healing via Macros

TEMPLATE

#showtooltip spell name
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/use trinket slot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast [help][target=mouseover,help,nodead][target=player] spell name

EXAMPLE

#showtooltip Regrowth
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast [help][target=mouseover,help,nodead][target=player] Regrowth

Basic Explanations

• #showtooltip spell name
  This line is merely used to show the tooltip of the specified spell when hovering over the button with the mouse. In addition, if using the question mark icon when creating the macro this will change that icon to be the icon of the spell specified. very helpful if you want to ensure you know the icons of the spells you want to cast in the event you ever have to do so with a completely unmodified user interface, though not nearly as much of an issue now that macros are stored server-side.
• /script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
  This handy little line of code simply suppresses errors relating to the next line. Basically, there will still be a warning if the trinket is not available for use yet, but no annoying boxes to become distracting.
• /use trinket slot
  The trinket slots are slots 13 and 14. Be certain you have trinkets where you want them and tied to the spells you want them tied to if using these macros. My personal preference is to “pop” trinkets that increase spellpower as often as I can, thus tying that trinket to whatever spell is cast most often (on my Druid I actually tie it to Rejuvenation, and on the Priest to Prayer of Mending).
• /script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
  This section clears the error “boxes” and turns them back on, ensuring any pertinent errors you may need to see are shown. To be honest, it has been so long since I’ve seen any errors other than lua errors related to addons I’m not even sure this script is still needed. I’ll continue to keep it in every macro I make that calls trinkets anyway though.
• /cast [help][target=mouseover,help,nodead][target=player] spell name
  This is the “meat” of the macro, and the most important part. As such, the components are broken down a little further:
  • [help]
    This portion merely means the recipient has to be friendly in order to cast the spell, and the ordering of these sections is important. Having this section first means that if I have a friendly target actually targeted then the spell will go to them, regardless of where my mouse is on the screen. Further, if I have an unfriendly target actually targeted, it will proceed to the next portion of the macro (very useful for keeping a boss targeted and still healing without any issue, reducing the number of additional unit frames I need on the screen to be effective).
  • [target=mouseover,help,nodead]
    This portion means that the target under my mouse, if friendly and alive, will be the recipient of the spell called upon in the macro. The beauty of using a mouseover macro is that there is no need to click on the target first, they simply have to be highlighted under the mouse.
  • [target=player]
    Closing out the macro, this portion casts the called action on me if neither of the first two conditions are met.

Practice with PuGs and Guildies

Too often I encounter healers that only run with people they are accustomed to running with all of the time. Growth as a healer cannot happen on the same scale when the group composition stays the same. Learning to heal under all sorts of conditions will yield a far greater understanding of what works best under which circumstances, how to adapt quickly to situations that arise, and exactly what can and cannot be healed through with each ability available. The cliched mantra “practice makes perfect” certainly applies in this case.

Shoulder the Responsibility

Everyone makes mistakes. It is better to quietly accept blame than to argue with those who do not understand everything that goes into healing an encounter during a run. There are absolutely times when someone should be reprimanded for placing blame, but to do so all the time will not do anything more than label you as a bad healer in the minds of many. Use the friends list to make a note for the offending person and simply do not group with them again, or even speak to them afterwards if you truly feel it necessary. Creating additional tension or hostility during a run impacts everyone, and it is unfair to those who know better.

Closing

I hope this guide proves useful for those wanting to get their roots wet and jump into healing as a Druid. More specific and in-depth guides on certain aspects will be posted as well in the future. Please do not hesitate to add your thoughts in the comments or send me a message on something you would like to know more about. Guides always take a significant amount of time to prepare, and attempting to do so in stages that do not seem intimidating or overwhelming is quite a challenge.